Wednesday, May 17, 2006

of sons, and what might have been.

...[S]he began with the same old same old by insisting that Bush "lied" to us about Saddam's WMDs. Then things got interesting: she acknowledged that 9/11 was a "criminal act," and said we should have treated it like a criminal act and not gone and invaded "two innocent countries." Which is a pretty radical way, even for her crowd, to describe Afghanistan under the Taliban.--- Cindy (I'm A rock star now) SheehanShe's so grief stricken she can't part with a few hundred bucks to mark the son's grave that sparked her career in lunacy.

For the first year after Casey was killed, I didn't want to believe it. I didn't want to place a TOMBstone on my son's grave. I didn't want one more marble proof that my son was dead. I couldn't even call where he was buried a "cemetery," I had to call it "Casey's Park." I placed fresh flowers in the cup every week and journaled there almost on a daily basis, and often laid on it and fell asleep and dreamed of my needlessly killed son. Have any of these people who claim that I am pissing on my son's grave even visited him? Have they visited the grave of any soldier needlessly or senselessly killed in George's war of choice for oil and profit? Have they sobbed uncontrollably for my first born who shouldn't even need a gravestone? No, all they want to do is attack a mother who wants to prevent other people from having to bury their own child. They want to perpetuate a war that has already killed many thousands of our fellow human beings for absolutely nothing.

Very well then, but her son's grave still has no stone. Our son's grave does, and I would bet that it was far more of a burden for us to pay for it then it would be for her. Our infant son didn't die in a war. But when she can say this...

No, all they want to do is attack a mother who wants to prevent other people from having to bury their own child.

Allow me to say this,

she wants to prepetuate a world where our surviving two children are targets for islamic thugs. She wants a world where waging war on those thugs is a crime, where self defense against those who would put us all in the ground is evil. She is pissing on her son's grave, and she's made this all about her, her, and only her. The son who volunteered to serve in Iraq is little more than an afterthought. Her laying on his grave is pathetic when she makes sure there's a camera there to capture HER grief. I know what it's like to bury a son, and her antics just make me ill. I value her son, deeply grateful for his service and I do honestly mourn all the sons and daughters lost. "No parent should have to bury their child" is a qoute that makes my eyes go red everytime I hear it. It's clear that in her zeal to be a pampered heroine to the lunatic fringe that she's lost sight of something.

If, when a home is burning, and a fireman rushs in to save the family only to loose his life... To die, in an act of loving sacrifice, of courage.

Do you then scream "murderer" at the mayor and firechief?

Do you accuse them of lying and luring the young man to his death, all for nothing? Of plying him with propaganda to seduce him into a situation that led to his death? That's what she's doing. When my mother buried her first born and only daughter, my sister, she became similarly unhinged, she blamed the doctors, the hospital, even my father. No amount of truth could disuade her, she could not, would not accept that the cancer was no ones fault. Sheehan is acting exactly like that, so bitter, so convinced that her grief is the only concern, the only truth.

She's transformed what actually happened into a personal vendetta.

I know what grief can do to you. It takes an extremely selfish person to so entwine themselves in their own pain, that they forget that others may hurt as well. They disregard the choices that the lost loved one made, and turn it into a kind of theft when in reality it was no such thing. Her simple minded politics preceded her son's death, so when she just piggybacks them on her son's grave, who is she really concerned about?

Buy a stone Cindy, then maybe I'll believe that you don't think it's really all about you.

Buy a Stone, and give him the respect his life deserved.

Buy a stone, he's your son.

Buy a stone, as one grieving parent to another, something that's entirely his. Not your's, but as a last gesture of love to a son. Even someone as damaged as you should be able to see that. I could not write about my son for a very long time, I still weep for him. So apare me the outrage, spare me the selfishness. I know the horribleness of imagining what would have been, of wondering what he might have done, or became. I know the torment, the sadness that can never fade away. I still see his face in my mind, everyday. So don't blame everyone else for a choice that Casey made, that he believed in. His effort will in time be measured in the children not yet born who will live in peace because of men like Casey, why do you rob him of that? Why do you steal from him the nobility of his efforts?

In the fullness of time, I would wish that my son could meet your's in the next world. If my son could grow to be anything like me, I bet he would like Casey. I would hope too that they both would never again know the pain of this earth. I hope that my son would tell your's that his father is greatfull. That his life had purpose and that others are alive today because he made a difference.

There is no grief like the grief for a child. So I wonder if I shouldn't feel sorry for Cindy. I'm tired of outrage and anger. I wonder if I shouldn't hope that one day, she'll come to see that travesty she made of his death. Because the only theft I see, is the one where she robs him of the dignity of his life and the causes he believed in. A fathers pain, a mothers, in all of that you must remember that it's the child who suffered the greatest loss. The loss of a future denied. When Cindy can remember that, maybe she will come to see that Casey's life and not her own persoanl pain is what should be his legacy. A legacy that hopefully will ensure my other two childrens future. Don't take something noble, and turn it into a thing of hate.

I'm going to make sure my son and daughter know who Casey was, and what he died for. I'm going to make sure they remember his name. It's the only way I can give him the respect that she denies him.

Get him a marker Cindy, it's a right thing, a loving thing to do. Forget the why's and politics, forget your agenda for just a second and just remember to love your son.